Pain Management Health Center

Study: Prescription Pain Pill Abuse Up 400%

July 19, 2010 -- Abuse of prescription pain relievers jumped 400% between 1998 and 2008 among people aged 12 and older, according to a new report.

The report showed that prescription pain reliever abuse rose from 2.2% in 1998 to 9.8% a decade later, with increases seen across all sectors of society -- gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, education, employment status, and region. Moreover, pain reliever abuse soared from 6.8% in 1998 to 26.5% in 2008 among people admitted to treatment facilities for opioid dependence.

Easy access to prescription pain relievers, such as keeping OxyContin in the bathroom medicine cabinet or accessing illegal pharmacies on the Internet, may play a role in the increase, experts say. These numbers also indicate that prescription painkiller abuse has become a major national public health threat.

“The non-medical use of prescription pain relievers is now the second most prevalent form of illicit drug use in the nation, and its tragic consequences are seen in substance abuse treatment centers and hospital emergency departments throughout our nation” says Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Administrator Pamela S. Hyde, JD, in a news release. “This public health threat demands that we follow the president’s National Drug Control Strategy’s call for an all out effort to raise awareness of this risk and the critical importance of properly using, storing, and disposing of these powerful drugs.”

Prescription Drug Abuse on the Rise

The study was conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It was based on treatment facility admission data and was published Friday as the “Treatment Episode Data Set Report.”

Among the study’s other key findings:

• There were equally significant increases in prescription pain reliever abuse among men and women. For men, the proportion of treatment admissions rose from 1.8% in 1998 to 8.1% a decade later; for women, those figures were 3.5% and 13.3%, respectively.
• There were also equally significant increases among people with different levels of education. For people with an eighth grade education or less, admissions rose from 1.9% to 9.7% from 1998 to 2008; people with more than a high school education experienced an increase from 3.8% to 12.1% during that same time period.
• More than 55% of nonmedical users obtained prescription pain relievers from a friend or a relative for free; another 8.9% reported that they purchased prescription painkillers from a friend or relative.
• Although increases were seen across all races/ethnicities, non-Hispanic whites showed one of the most significant increases of admissions of prescription painkiller misuse, from 3.2% in 1998 to 14.4% in 2008.
• Increases were similar among the employed and unemployed, with a jump for employed people from 2.1% in 1998 to 9.2% in 2008 versus 2.7% to 11.1% for the unemployed.